


If Not Brothers

by PaulaMcG



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Animagus, Artist Remus Lupin, Hogwarts, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, Marauders, Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), Multi, Nature, Pre-Slash, Spring, The Marauder's Map, Touching, Unrequited Amelia/Remus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 07:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21011945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaulaMcG/pseuds/PaulaMcG
Summary: In May of their fifth year at Hogwarts, Remus and Sirius learn more about touching each other.





	If Not Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> Remus/Sirius here can be considered pre-slash, emerging; Remus/Amelia is friendship, as anything else only attempted, unrequited.  
There are some references to abuse.

If Not Brothers

“I solemnly swear that…” he spouts too suddenly.

I nearly let the parchment slide down from my knees. He makes me laugh so easily. Sirius! Now I’m giddy – just to know that he’s sprawled behind me on this bed, and to get a reason to look at him. I shift a bit to let the fresh May afternoon light from the dormitory window fall across his face, and I almost forget to laugh anyway, lost in studying the lines of his neck and wide shoulders, and the frail shadows drawn by his eyelashes.

“… That I’m up to no good!” Peter, perched on the opposite bed beside James, completes the phrase we’ve been looking for.

Sirius opens his eyes and chortles.

“That’s it! Write it down, Moony!” James commands.

Four years ago I’d be sitting up on the windowsill, watching them across a distance which would seem impossible to cross – as if I were not in the same world or of the same species, not ever. And now they’ve all, taking tremendous risks, changed to be close to me always.

I want to believe they’ve not lost much in the process, but gained, grown. It makes me smile how Peter was right about the real rat in the Shack, and stuck to his original crazy idea. And James, too, turned out to be right: while it’s taken longer for him, he is becoming a bigger animal. And how again Peter was right: James’s head was, indeed, swelling, and now he’s been crowned – albeit only twice for a brief moment – with antlers of an amazing size for a young stag. Pads, in turn, is a huge dog – but clearly a puppy, often clumsy on his paws, uncertain, eager and hesitant at the same time.

I’ve started drawing the words carefully, with flourishes, forgetting that this is supposed to be only a note. We’re just at the beginning of our new secret project. This phrase must definitely not be read by any outsider, and after finishing it quickly, I turn to take up my wand so as to perform a concealment charm immediately. Have I tossed the wand further on the bed, perhaps on purpose, or has Sirius moved it, he, too, perhaps…

Reaching out for the wand, I lean over his chest, brushing it with mine. I can sense him twitch, but when, starting to straighten up, I glance at his irresistibly handsome face, he’s staring at the ceiling, as if nothing had happened: as if I hadn’t just touched him, and as if Pads hadn’t touched me at full moon like no one before. I know he has. Uncannily enough, transcending its torment of changes, my body remembers it, and after the third time I’ve stopped denying it. Now I can’t help always wanting… Withdrawing my wand just over his throat, I let my little finger glide across his chin.

The hairy snout appears so abruptly it scares me. How can I possibly want this after… such horror and pain as… that flashing image! No, I know I can’t remember it: I was a child. I was five, and human, in a life before this one. And in this one I’ve finally got this dog, the friend I love, and he’ll never hurt me, never harm me.

He’s the one who hesitates.

Here I am, a dog again. A stray, perhaps to stay. Can I not agree to be Moony’s, although I’ve changed for him?

Now I refuse to lick his fingers when, after I’ve startled, even scared him to recoiling for a moment, he offers them too eagerly, as if he wanted to caress the lips he wishes had smiled to him. I can’t… let him touch me like this, let him touch me in the way he now wants all the time.

I change too easily. I wish it hurt me a bit at least, as if that could make his hurting any less: perhaps it would help him somehow, if I were even more like him. In any case I wouldn’t have to worry so much that I end up changing in the presence of others besides Prongs and Wormtail when there’s a threat like this.

No, this now is not so bad: his hand on Padfoot’s fur. Sometimes I wish the change made me, too, leave my human mind behind. In any case I can almost convince myself that in this new shape my body is not what was forced against the disgusting… No.

I slip away, leap down from his bed and towards the window, and lift my front paws on the sill. The breeze and sunlight on my snout make me feel free and sure enough of myself again, and allow me a conscious decision to turn back into the human form.

“The rain’s stopped,” I say, gazing out at the clearing sky, down at the shadows of clouds that glide across glistening lawns.

This could be a picture painted by Remus – with the oils I ordered for him in the autumn, when I still had my excessive pocket money to squander. Now after I got away, and got blasted out of the hideous tapestry, too, as I learned from the note Regulus sneaked to me – and I wonder why, since we otherwise pretend not to know each other – I’m still not allowed to forget I’ve got an uncle, as Alphard keeps pestering me, claiming that he helped me escape and wants to help, but I send his Galleons back to him, although Peter says it’s stupid.

Now Peter’s stopped churning out silly alternatives for passwords we could use in our secret map, and started talking about schoolwork. We’ve still got a full month before our OWLs, but he’s been convinced – by Remus, I suppose – that he can exceed expectations and do well if he begins to study hard.

“I think I’m going to walk the dog,” I say, turning to face them. 

Remus lifts his eyes from the rolled-up parchment. “James,” he says, staring at me, while they may think he’s looking past me, assessing the weather, and corrects himself with a smile in his voice, “Prongs, could you assist Wormtail with the Charms theory? I promised to do it, but you’re so much better at it.”

“Perhaps better at Charms, and better at theory, but you’re better at teaching.” James seems to argue against the suggestion. Does he, too, assess me – if not the weather – before agreeing? “All right, lets get to work, Wormy!”

“Thanks. We can do History of Magic together tomorrow. But now I want to make some sketches outside.”

By the time I’ve grabbed a sketchbook and some pencils, Sirius is pounding down the stairs. I try my best not to hurry after him. I don’t know if he wants me to join him – to walk the dog – and not even if I want James and Peter to realise that joining him has now become even more compelling to me than it’s been ever since September. Having stopped to peer at the Charms book over Peter’s shoulder, to nudge him and say, “Good boy,” I still return to choose one more pencil – and get the idea to take the photo album, too, so that only the two of us can laugh at it.

Of course, he’s already exited the common room when I enter. Do I have to care if anyone here…? No, who’d think twice about one Marauder rushing out after another? Amelia: the sound of my footsteps – light, as I’m barefoot – makes her lift her head from a book she’s opened on the hearthrug.

A year and two years ago I would join her, draw my first sketches here, and while showing them to her, place my hand under her book for her to touch, then whisper in her ear, “Let us go then, you and I!” No, I’d do it only under the waxing gibbous moon, which makes me crave touch so badly, and later, when I was foolhardy enough to trust her almost completely, also on the first days after removing the bandages. But never again this school year – never after Sirius and I started taking care of each other.

Now I give her an apologetic smile. I’m sure she understands without any explanation – more than any outsider can, just because they think she was my girlfriend, and she knows: almost.

Having started to run right outside of the portrait hole, I feel… strong, like never before in this life. Everything’s easy for me – like laughing, now flying along corridors, down staircases. I can’t wait to get outside, and still, I enjoy every step, and I love every corner, every classroom door, every suit of armour, these walls sometimes so suffocating – because now this is our shared home. I live here with him, and I feel fully alive, fully myself, and quite human enough. A man who knows how to love another.

Only under the front stairs do I stop, so as to scan the grounds, and trusting that I’ll spot him easily and not very far. No, he’s nowhere to be seen, but nothing can make me worried. If he wants to spend this evening with me, he’s gone where I know to find him.

Running on light feet down the lawn towards the lake, I remember the October sunrise when I’d come this way – barefoot in the frost – to feel connected to the trees with their secret colours revealed by a miracle of change – and ended up running hand-in-hand with a friend for the very first time. Why do I now think so much of Amelia, whom I all but abandoned in September? Because there are new miracles underway among my dearest, Marauder friends. And I want to believe that the wonder of Sirius and me can be consummated unlike anything before for either of us.

Yes, it can – the new wonders of spring promise: the birches bursting into radiant leaf, the rowans soft silvery green, and among dark, glossy leaves at my feet, the lucent yellow stars of celandines.

Remus has started teaching me to see the world like a painting I can breathe – and step into and roam, listening, smelling, even tasting the air, and touching… Near the water’s edge, and the forest’s, I finally remember his lessons and slow down, and reach my hand to brush the branches of a young rowan.

Yes, I recognise the tree even without its berries now. The pale, swelling buds he showed me on our previous outing, on the early morning before the full moon – yes, a week ago – have burst open, and leaves have unfurled: soft, almost furry, with every leaflet – thirteen, I count – perfect miniature versions of those we once watched turn the colour of blood.

I caress a leaf with a fingertip, as cautiously as I stroked his skin at the very first time. I am learning; it is possible for me to get used to touching someone, even though I can hardly bear anyone touching me.

Just James, and even his punching me on the side, or grabbing my arm, first repulsed me and, I admit, scared me when I was just turning twelve and hardly believed I no longer needed to let the blood-purist heirs play with me, was no longer one of them. Relieved, I found out that James wanted only to wrestle. And soon to talk about girls. Not to do anything, because he wanted only Evans.

And as all the girls seemed to want me, I decided to show I could do it: I knew what to do since it had been done to me. But I couldn’t, and even the kiss on a girl’s mouth made me feel sick as if I were nine again and pressed against… No.

Anyway, there was no touching needed in our brotherhood, among the Marauders, in Gryffindor, and this became my home.

Was there ever one before? I can remember my parents touching me – only to hurt, and I want to forget that. I can forget that. Even the last nightmare of a summer holiday, which I finally confessed to my Marauders and forbid them ever to mention.

Perhaps I managed to stop thinking about it only because Remus tried to make me tell him more, and insisted on staying close to me inside the hangings of my fourposter while I recoiled from his attempts at hugs and caresses. I’m able to forget because – as he whispered – it’s all right that we cry. He cried for me, and told me more about himself, and now I can cry for him. But I must do more. I know he needs touching, and this stray must learn.

The welts on my back were replaced by his wounds. At the setting of September full moon, I insisted, in turn: I came and stayed close to him in the Shack until Pomfrey’s approach made me hide under the bed. To my surprise, he didn’t mind my seeing his body so terribly mauled – by himself, to top it all off. Afterwards, when his throat was healed enough to allow him to talk, he explained that he was not ashamed of that body – that he was proud of it: his regained treasure. But while he could only stare at me, with the eyes in his white face huge and bright amber like an owl’s, I couldn’t make myself touch him.

A month later I brought a quilt I’d bought, very light albeit warm, but even its weight would have hurt his arms more, so I left them bare. And that’s when I ventured to slide a fingertip softly on the pale skin between two gashes garish red like the leaves he’d shown me.

There he is: right where I brought him to the warmth of the trees’ torches, lit by the first frost last autumn. He’s bending a branch of a rowan, focused on looking at it closely, and this makes me smile ever more widely. The city boy who’d hardly been allowed to visit any parks in London, now finding new nuances in the nature, on these grounds where he became a free Marauder.

This spring he’s even learning to imitate birds’ calls with me, keen enough a listener, although he’s no singer… not yet; I’d like to help him become one, as I love his speaking voice. What would I not love about him, whom I’ve admired ever since the first sight I caught at King’s Cross. It’s all been romantic dreams about a hero I’m joining in struggle for a better world. And now that there’s the new intimate connection that could mean romance – it’s more: it’s the reality of our lives entwined.

He’s worked hard, and what he’s done for me means a lot to him, too. Still, something makes him scared. Now, so as not to startle him, I whistle softly – and a tune I haven’t introduced to him yet as the mating call of another thrush. But what else would any bird sing on an evening like this?

As he turns the light of his eyes to me, I crouch to pick a flower, so as to continue to approach him cautiously – as if he truly were a stray. He’s grinned when he’s said he’s one, and I wonder if he’s serious – and there’s no way of asking Sirius seriously how serious he is – or if he just refers to the fact that he’s escaped his parents’ house.

He’s stayed immobile, I check with a glance. Stepping closer across the wet grass, which brushes my bare ankles and gives me a pleasant shiver, I keep my gaze at the bloom of celandine on my palm. I feel like offering this flower to him, but that would be too romantic in a wrong, soppy way. 

I can’t resist reciting,“Glowing, scorching, you brightest…” and he must know I’m addressing him, but I place this little yellow star next to a newly-unfurled leaf on the branch he’s holding. “Bright enough to distinguish the species?” I leave also my hand there, and finally fix my eyes on his face.

He returns my grin, confident enough. “Yes, even if you try to hoodwink me.” And I can feel his touch: he’s managed to move his fingers across the short distance along the branch, and he pushes the flower and my hand aside gently with a brush that lingers on the skin of my knuckles.

“Well done!” I hope my voice is coming out light, playful, and I fight the urge to touch him in turn. “This is good practice for you. In the mood for some more?” After a last intense look into his eyes, I force myself to turn away from them.

I move ahead, away from the shore, along the edge of the woods, hoping that I’ve got him in some kind of an invisible leash.

I follow him like a loyal dog, and more loyal: still in my human form, because I know he wants me to practise touching like this, too – hairless skin to skin. I passed the first test: I pushed his hand away, but gently. He’s happy.

He’s so happy tonight, these days. This is the best time in the cycle, and he doesn’t need soothing of pain, consolation, reassurances. He’s teaching me so as to have a better service at his time of need. Or does he believe this can do some good to me?

He’s heading to one of his favourite trees, and I remember, of course, that it’s called an elm, a wych-elm. The detailed observations were harder to make and memorise. “A wych-elm, with teardrop-shaped leaves.”

He stops so abruptly that I almost bump into him. “Outstanding!” He raises his hand slowly in my full view and pats me on the shoulder.

Years ago I got used to James doing this, and the others, too. Why does it now make me nervous when Remus does it? There seems to be a deeper meaning in everything between the two of us. Even the morphology of the tree we’re approaching reminds us of the shared weeping, which has been too embarrassing to mention a single time over all these months when we’ve tried our best to satisfy each other’s needs.

“There’s something new to learn every season,” he says, striding at my side.

Another change, of course. The tree looks like it’s been dressed in lemon-coloured lace.

“It blossoms before bursting into leaf,” I point out.

“Yes, and see, these little flowers in clusters have no petals. They need not attract insects, as the pollen is spread by the wind.”

I wish that I, too, could be touched by the wind only. But also this is something I started learning only after coming to school.

I first hated gusts blowing my hair (which I’d immediately decided to let grow) over my eyes – or from them (when I wanted to hide my gaze from those older Slytherins) – or blowing under my robes. I hated rain and fog, even too bright sun. Just by the first December I must have been sure enough of the shelter of the Marauders (James, in particular, who was so sure of himself) and the whole of Gryffindor, so that I was able to start fully enjoying the fun offered by the snow. I learnt that when playing in it, even getting my gloves and more wet in snowball fights, or even freezing when trudging together through drifts in snowstorms was better than the drafts in the gloomy house, or being trapped against the frozen windowpane when… No.

But I still hate being cold, especially when standing still. Now it makes me shiver just to look at his bare feet as he’s stopped to peer up at the crown of his elm. 

He drops his sketchbooks, ties the hems of his robes around his waist, and grabs the lowest, almost horizontal branch with his both hands. When he pushes his feet up against the trunk, I dare not look. I’m afraid he still sometimes goes around with nothing under his robes, not even pants – as is the habit in the country, he’s explained, at least among poorer wizards and those who’re not quite – or, as I’ve learnt to say, only – human.

“Come on!” He’s already sitting in a relaxed pose, leaning his side against the trunk, and with his both legs dangling in front of me.

His thin legs look… beautiful, so surprisingly healthy: has he really already got some tan on the skin, which is smooth, too, with hardly a trace of any scar, no bruises – thanks to no more of mangling himself since March, and I am proud. But I know that is not enough, and I am not enough.

“Climb up, come on! You can do it easily. You’ve learnt it so well, and you’re the taller of us!” He’s about to stand up on the branch so as to make space for my climbing.

But he’ll sit down again, and there’s no way we wouldn’t be touching, even pressed against each other. Dogs don’t climb trees.

I turn my snout up, look at him apologetically. With a small sigh, he settles back in his previous position.

And now, finally – as his feet are right here, but no, it’s not unintentional – I do some of the licking he wished for in the dormitory. I lick his toes, his soles, even his ankles, as tenderly and thoroughly as I can. They are cold.

Oh, this licking! I can’t help laughing. I am ticklish, but I laugh also because it feels so good. Padfoot’s tongue is warm, and smooth, not rough like our cat’s at home, but he moves it on my feet so cautiously that the touch is almost unbearable. But oh so wonderful – that he wants to do this.

When he stops and tilts his head as if asking how I liked it, I must draw a breath so as to manage, “I loved it. Thank you!”

I drop myself from the tree. It’s easy enough not to show any disappointment when he remains a dog. Now I trust it’ll be all right to touch him back.

Having knelt to ruffle the fur on his neck, I venture to wrap my arms around him. He wriggles to free himself, but only playfully, I hope… Yes, now he presses his front paws – too big even for a dog as huge as this: puppy paws – against my chest, just softly, not to hurt me, of course not (what did I think for a flashing moment), not even to push me away, but as if to suggest that we wrestle. I let myself fall on my back, and…

I stare at the bright yellow and blue above in strange desperation, as if the harsh, damp ground had summoned a colourless gloom to engulf me. I do like dogs, and I love this one, but also I’m repulsed, or scared when I think of the grinning snout approaching my face.

Did he notice it: at least the absence of my laughter? He’s licking my hand now. And when I sit back up, he settles against me, with his paws covering my feet as if to warm them or to make me stay – and whichever is his purpose, it makes me fully serene again.

My eyes find the photo album where I’ve dropped it together with the sketchbook. Stretching my hand out for it, I remember to talk to him again – to Sirius, whose mind, of course, has been fully here with me all the time.

“Look, I’ve got something to show you.” I keep my both palms hiding the picture on the padded plastic cover, and go on babbling, “I bought this over Easter but then I felt embarrassed, didn’t want you all to see it. When I was back at school it looked so awfully childish, after all. But now I thought the two of us could laugh at it together.”

Pads licks my fingers, and I slide my hands aside. The two cocker spaniel puppies stare at me with round eyes in their light golden faces, and make me feel sillier than ever. They don’t look like us at all.

There’s a brief bark, now a hearty laugh. “They’re so… similar. I love them.”

His words and his warm voice reassure me. He shifts a bit so as no longer to lean on me while sitting beside me, but I feel he’s doing it discreetly. And he seems to forget to move one of his hands away. Indeed, he’s holding my foot, in the way – I’d say if I indulged myself – you’d hold your sweetheart’s hand!

“These puppies must actually be from the same litter,” I say, now feasting my eyes on Sirius’s face, so much more beautiful than mine, or anyone’s. I can hardly resist the urge to brush the stray tendrils from his forehead, and to draw the graceful lines of his eyebrows – first with my finger, then with my pencil in the sketchbook.

He’s turned to stare at my face, but I look back at the adorable picture: a Muggle photograph, with no movement. “Easier for the photographer to arrange. But…” Yes, I’m a bold Gryffindor, not afraid to approach the issue. “But you don’t choose to see them as brothers, do you?”

“No.” He rubs one puppy’s face with his thumb. “Your brother is… or is becoming a stag.”

It’s no secret at Hogwarts that I’ve called James my brother for a year and more now, since a long time before his parents offered me a home. “James and I don’t need to be alike.”

“No.” Here I am with a perfect opportunity to talk to Sirius, and that’s all I’m saying.

I’d rather have him talk about himself, for once. That would be a step towards his allowing me to touch him.

“But you...” He’s trying to talk about me. That’s not bad either.

I’ve said these words before – at that incredible moonset in March, when I’d become the dog for the very first time, and it had watched him transform back, and he was amazed, still worried that I could have changed back too early and be in danger, but I said I couldn’t because... I must be able to say them again. “You needed me to be like you.” 

“Yes, and that’s why now you’re a dog whenever I need…” Yes, he remembers and repeats my words.

“But this is still not enough.” Now I’m suddenly fully aware of having held my hand on his foot, and my first reaction is to start moving the hand away.

But his skin has turned warm under mine, and now I’ve ended up touching a colder spot. Drawing a breath, which feels as a shudder in my chest, I press my palm down on his ankle, then push the hand forward until his cold toes. I’m rubbing his foot, and this is not so hard. I even dare glance at his face, and he’s smiling. We share a smile, and… Does he want me to stop? No, he shifts so that I can reach his other foot better, too, and I start using my other hand as well. Still not enough, I know. But I’m learning; I can do better.

He’s stroking my feet, rubbing them warm. Oh, how I love him. He’s always doing his best. But what does he need?

“But what about you… Would you like to have another brother?”

His hands stop. Then he shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s what you…”

Having waited for him to continue, trying to guess what he means, I suddenly want to make this into an easier conversation, after all. And I simply must check. “Is it sure you can stay this summer at the Potters’?”

“Yes. Don’t… Really, there’s no reason to worry. I won’t go back. And they’re sure not to try to force me, after blasting… And Mrs… Mother and father Potter have made it clear I’m like a son.”

“That’s good. Just if you ever need, or just want, you can come to the Cotswolds, too.”

“Thanks. Perhaps I could visit with James in the summer. We could come for the full moon if he can keep his antlers all through the night.”

“That’d be great.” I try to keep my voice cheerful. 

He doesn’t want to be alone with me. I suppose he needs to learn slowly just what we are if not brothers.

There’s a silence, and I wonder if I could move my hands away, perhaps suggest that we head back. My robes are thicker than his, and I’ve got something underneath, too, but my backside is getting uncomfortably damp and cold.

But he now opens the album. At least I can stop touching his feet since he thrusts it to me.

“That’s my mother.”

“She looks… gorgeous.” But not scary like almost all the witches in the Black family.

“Doesn’t she?” In this picture she’s young, and it occurs to me that Sirius would deserve to marry someone like she was. Perhaps she could have had a gorgeous-looking daughter, or her son could have grown to be as handsome as herself if… “She was busy with her theatre and didn’t want another child too soon, and then… So there is the position of my brother free.”

“This is your father?” He points at the second old photo, in which two roguish smiles have grown still.

“No, that’s her brother Francis. My father’s on the next page.”

He turns the page. “Well, he looks like you.” Gentle and dreamy. “So you’ve got an uncle, too.”

“No.” Here I go again. And now just a few more words to coax him to talk. I’m trying first if it’s enough to say this lightly. “I had, and he was a great prankster, trained me to become a Marauder. But he went away with a veela.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. But at least he wasn’t a bugger like mine.”

“Alphard… is?”

“Yes.” He bites his lip, hesitates just for a second, then plunges into what he perhaps feels he needs to and now has a chance to explain. “That’s why I must always send his money back. Though he’s not the worst kind. At least he doesn’t pretend like those who marry and stay in marriage but… Sorry. We were talking about your family.”

“No, tell me.” I don’t dare disturb him by taking the album from him.

He closes it, stares at the cover. “Maybe… I’d like to make one thing clear. I said I didn’t want to talk about it. I don’t. But you were there when I came through the stained-glass window at Godric’s Hollow, and you saw how ridiculous I looked.”

Ridiculous? He looked terrible. That image is to stay with me, I know, and he certainly doesn’t want to know: it moves through my nightmares but never changes, no matter how much I try to make him less awfully cold, exhausted, famished.

I’m holding an emaciated half-goblin’s head up, trying to pour some warm juice between his blue lips. And when I take off my cloak to spread it over… No. He’s not dead, no one’s allowed to die even in this nightmare. When I tuck it around him, I feel a cold draft on my arms, which I’ve carelessly bared, rolling up the sleeves when helping Mrs Potter by preparing the gravy for the charity meal. I’m supposed to soon Apparate home for my father’s Christmas goose, but now the magical gate has opened for one more creature in need.

He’s leaning against the stained-glass shepherds, hugging himself. The face is white like the half-goblin’s, and it’s his dear face. “It’s Sirius.” My voice is so stifled I don’t know if Mrs Potter can hear what I’m saying. He recoils as she strides to him. “Can I stay?” And he won’t want to know how I can still hear the pleading in his voice. “No!” She must be alarmed to recognise him, but I don’t understand, and, “Please,” I’m pleading, too. And when I approach him, he stares at me with such incredulity in his eyes as if it were a miracle we are both there. Now I dare touch him, lift my hand to his shoulder so as to steady him, and keep it there all the way to the Potters’ after we’ve both comprehended that this is the home where she means to take him.

He wants to sleep first, even before meeting James, and I’m the only one who sees him take off the flimsy shoes he’s been wearing without socks, and under that jaunty gleaming purple cloak he’s dressed in the Muggle clothes Peter sold to him, the trousers so much too short for him that they leave his ankles bare. He falls down on the bed, turns away from me, and I pull a coverlet over him, and I venture to lie down behind him, barely touching his back in the way he’s lain down with me in the Shack after moonsets. He says one word, “Close.” I think, or, “Closer.”

He hasn’t said a word. Does he even know what I’m talking about? Perhaps I’d better not…

Finally. “Ridiculous?” Is his voice teary? “It was just… magnanimous of you to buy those clothes from Peter, and if you managed with them to irritate your…”

“I mean that… swish cloak of his.” I can make believe that only these puppies are listening. “Uncle Alphard’s.”

“Your uncle gave it to you?”

“And a Galleon.” Now I’ve confessed, and I look defiantly at him, but hardly see him: behind his attentive, encouraging half-smile, there’s Alphard’s jovial grin. “For the Knight Bus to his house. But I said I wouldn’t go there, I wouldn’t come back ever, but… I didn’t let him touch me. I said, ‘I won’t.’ I won’t. I haven’t let anyone ever since I became a Gryffindor.”

I hardly dare understand what he’s talking about. His parents have been beating him exactly ever since he became a Gryffindor. Who’d touch him and how when he was younger than…

“You… Don’t ever…” I don’t know what I’m saying. “We won’t let anyone hurt you ever again.” Who am I to promise? “Not even me. Don’t let me!”

“You don’t hurt me.” Unlike mine, his voice is flat and quiet, and he’s not looking up from the album. “And anyway, you know, I wish it hurt me when I change for you.”

Now he’s the one who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But I’m glad he still can’t imagine the worst pain. I mustn’t resent him: he wishes he could take a part of my hurting away. And he’s already done it. As for the rest, it’s no use wishing. 

“You know, I still find it hard…” Why, once again, am I talking about myself?

I always do this so as to coax others to talk about themselves. But now I’ve interrupted him, perhaps because I can’t bear what he’s got to say. And if it’s not his uncle who’s done something to him earlier, forced him to… and he was a child… I can’t…

If not, I can’t accept his resentment against this uncle and all those he calls buggers. They may break the law, but he hasn’t been one to care for laws against equality, and I’ve thought he believes the same as I’ve been taught: that sex is good and beautiful between any grown-up creatures who consent to it.

My kind, of course, is an exception; I’m an anomaly, I’ve thought. I mustn’t deceive anyone to have sex with a werewolf. And I thought I wouldn’t even be able to become aroused. It seemed to be proved with Amelia. A year ago, yes, right here… 

My eyes are brimming, and is it even not for him, who’s been through unspeakable things? Just for me and my disappointment. Turning my face up, I get to stare at the sad beauty of my tree’s apetalous flowers, which only winds visit. Now I feel a gust blow through us, shaking me, too. It’s always been all right and more, a pleasure, for me to walk without shoes. But now that he’s let me get used to the warmth of his hands and taken it away, I’m cold.

Only when scrambling to my feet, do I realise my robes are wet from sitting for so long on the damp ground.

He’s looked up, startled. “I’m sorry. I’ve upset you.”

“No… Don’t… We need it.” I lurch towards the trunk, press my palm, then my back against it.

Trees have always comforted me, and I’ve loved them. I’ve also loved my friends, and admired their beauty, and craved their human touch on my skin to prove my humanity.

And now, so soon after I’ve learnt that I am also able… It makes me feel sick that I’ve assessed him so wrong. Silly of me, just because I know he hasn’t wanted sex with any girl.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

Why does he apologise? Unless he means that he doesn’t want to be close to me after finding out…

I’ve wanted exactly that, since Christmas I’ve been sure: to be close, if not – until I slowly learn, and I will learn – to quite touch. How stupid I was: I got the idea to reassure him that there’s been nothing like that between me and Alphard ever, or me and anyone after I first came to Hogwarts, and I ended up all but revealing the disgusting things I did before, when I let first those old wizards, then their sons… No, I don’t have to say it.

He’s not asking any questions; it repulses him, of course. Perhaps I repulse him, and here I am holding his family photographs.

At least I can get up now that he’s done it first. And I’ll hand this album to him casually – together with the sketchbook that’s been lying forgotten… for too long: it’s all damp, too. And not of any good quality. I wish I could still place orders with Echanted Art Equipment... And I hate myself for this useless wishing!

He’s leaning against the elm’s trunk with his arms folded, and his eyes are too bright.

“Your sketchbook doesn’t look too good,” I say. Having picked it up, I’ve placed it on the album, and I offer them both to him in one hand.

He stares at them as if not comprehending what he’s seeing.

“I don’t mean the contents,” I add.

Now he unfolds his arms and reaches out both. Only after moving the sketchbook under the album, and glancing at the puppies, does he press them against his chest. “You don’t want to stay?”

“We could walk.” My voice comes out almost flippant although I try to sound considerate. “If you still want.”

“Walk the dog?” Now he smiles a bit. “We haven’t done that. As I haven’t drawn any sketches, just as I seldom do when you and the dog just… overwhelm me. Do you want to change?”

“No. I can stay… a man, if it’s all right for you. A wizard, too, I could use a Drying Charm on our robes.”

“All right.” He turns to face the trunk.

I have to fight the feeling that there’s something wrong about his exposing his back and backside to me and my wand so trustingly. Having performed the charm as well but also as quickly as possible, I hurry to repeat it on myself, not giving him any time to offer the service.

Since this magic takes from my body the warmth needed for the water to evaporate, I’m glad he’s already striding briskly along the edge of the Forbidden Forest. I wonder if he wants me to catch up, but I soon do – confident enough, too, because he hasn’t chosen to walk back towards the castle.

“You say we need… it?” Perhaps foolhardy, I return to his being upset. He might have meant that we need just this: talking about what’s hard. “And before you were saying, ‘I still find it hard…’” My excellent memory of any words read or heard – useful in studies – is sometimes a burden, too.

What was I going to say? I can’t think. Perhaps I shouldn’t try to have any conversation, when I don’t know whether talking about what was done to him could possibly heal him. I must be grateful he wants to walk with me. I’d definitely love to have more than that – and I shouldn’t, because he must feel the resentment and repulsion against me, too. But now that he’s suddenly at my side, demanding something, I’m struck by an irrational feeling that he’s caught me. I’ve already reacted by lifting the sketchbook and the album for protection…

Yes, perhaps this is a possibly helpful way of talking about myself. “I still find it hard to accept anyone’s touch on… where my first scars are.”

“On your chest and…”

All right, we must name… “On my left shoulder: that’s where the… worst one is.”

He’s seen them, of course, not touched. Amelia – the other way round. A year ago before I guided her hand to my crotch, so as to rid myself from the slight remaining hope, it was my duty to tell her what I couldn’t say: to tell her what I am, by first guiding her fingers to this shoulder – while keeping it hidden from her eyes.

“Perhaps you noticed that I recoiled when your paws so suddenly touched my chest, and when I fell back. I’m not sure why, but… I think I don’t really want to remember. Anyway, I can now… I’ve learnt to let a friend look at the worst scars without touching – or touch them without looking. I think that now if someone wants to stroke them under my clothes or in darkness, I can imagine he’s touching healthy, beautiful skin, and I’m healed at least for a moment. But still not long ago I could consent to touch only on other parts of my skin. Now, perhaps it’s not just me. Perhaps when someone’s been… beaten, or violated…” 

“And turned into a stray,” he says, and I can hear the resilient humour in his voice even before I see the grin.

“Yes, perhaps the stray needs – and can learn to want – some kind of touching, first not where… it’s been worst.”

Perhaps there’s something here we share in common, and that’s why I’m the one to help him – to help, in turn, the friend who’s become an Animagus for me. Even though he can’t learn and become for me something else I’ve desired – as I hardly dare hope that he’ll ever welcome my touch as healing where he was hurt. 

Looking down, feeling melancholy despite the beautiful phrases I’m churning out in my mind, I notice I’m trampling flowers. More celandines. And these tiny stars tell me, or I choose to tell them that I do hope, or I’ll help him to have hope. What better thing to give someone even when you don’t have it. 

He’s no longer beside me but behind my back. Turning abruptly, I blurt out, “According to your… theory, my back’s not the best part to start with – or my backside.”

He’s crouching, holding another yellow star-shaped flower on his palm, now between his fingers, not doing even so much violence as cutting its stem. He looks so chaste that I’m glad I at least – like always in my mind – chose not to say any of those coarse words I used to hear about my beautiful ass.

“I mean...” I take the few steps and crouch in front of him. I do have the courage to make this clear now. “If you can still want to touch me and not be repulsed by me after what I… somehow told you.”

“What? Some things were done to… the child you were. Now, you’ve got it all wrong. You yourself have all reason to be repulsed by all men, this half-human among others. But I’d like to hope – and you to hope – that someday you’ll still want a man to touch you.”

Once again, he’s like a bright gate from where I’ve grown in darkness. Just as when, at the start of our second year, he let us figure out what he is – and still, we knew for sure that this gentle, generous friend truly was not a Dark creature, and there stirred in me the hope that I, too, wouldn’t need to stay defined and deformed by the evil, the disgusting, though I had been a part of it and it was part of me.

“No, I won’t want any... but you, my Moony – you who are more than human.”

As if the gift of those words of his weren’t overwhelming enough, he complements them with, “I’ll do my best to be the man and the dog for you.” Besides, I know absolutely that he’ll be true to his words. 

And now he reaches for my hand, gently frees the flower from my fingers so as to leave it among its peers. “I hope you continue to teach me,” he says, “although you now know that it can be difficult in a different way. I haven’t learnt the name of this star yet.”

“Celandine,” I say. “The name comes from the originally Greek word for a swallow.”

“Celandine,” he repeats, pulling me to stand up. “I think I’m in the mood for one more lesson of the other type, too. Unfortunately my mouth is not the part to start with, either, but…”

He’s suddenly got so cheerful – gay, I’d like to say – due to his relief, I guess. But now he bites his lip, and blinks, and even has to turn his face up a bit, perhaps to hold back tears. Glancing up as well, I see evening’s rosy glow on a small sheep-shaped cloud.

“It’s all right,” I say. “You’re all beautiful.” Did it make any sense to say that? But it’s true. The glow is further reflected on his skin and on his luminous eyes. “I love every part of you.” 

“They never hit me on the face,” he whispers, now staring firmly back at me. “Didn’t want to leave any marks for others to see.”

“Hush,” I say, and I lift first my left hand to his temple.

Here is another beginning in our story: in my fingers’ slow journey across his brow, his eyelids, his cheekbones. Next time, perhaps, if not today, he’ll want me to caress his face with my lips, too.

**Author's Note:**

> This piece can stand on its own, but it also belongs to the story I tell in all my fanfiction. The picture on the cover of Remus’s photo album was possibly this one: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/1970s-two-cocker-spaniel-puppies-vintage-images.html. The inspiration for these scenes was supported by a song written by Daniele Magro and sung by Chiara Galiazzo: Il rimedio, la vita e la cura. It’s a pity our puppies didn’t get to hear it.


End file.
